Το work with title The role of local government in sustainable tourism development and promotion: the case of the Chania municipality by Vardalakis Emmanouil is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Bibliographic Citation
Emmanouil Vardalakis, "The role of local government in sustainable tourism development and promotion: the case of the Chania municipality", Master Thesis, School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2022
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.92233
In recent years, with the development of air links and the wider economic context that led to the increasing trend of people to make leisure trips, it is considered essential to define new strategies and restructure already developed mechanisms aimed at sustainable tourism development and promotion. These actions seek to mobilize all the resources of a region through a network of stakeholders, which aim to promote local elements and engage the local community in actions that will lead to conditions of further development in a sustainability framework. The purpose of this research is to explore the following issues in the Municipality of Chania:• The redefinition of the tourist product of the Municipality of Chania• The development of new and more modern development strategies• The sustainability of the tourist product of the Municipality of ChaniaThis research tries to capture and clarify the guidelines and actions of local actors in Chania Municipality, in order to maintain and develop tourism to be sustainable and to characterized by sustainability. Considering that the clearer depiction of an existing situation determines the prospects for its improvement, this research is not primarily aimed at making proposals but mainly at their emergence through a more objective reflection of reality as possibleThe data collection was done by the method of semi-structured interviews and the participants were six entrepreneurs active in tourism and representatives of four key stakeholders in the tourism development of the Municipality of Chania. Of the participating entrepreneurs, four are involved in the hotel sector, one with a private transport company and one with the catering sector. The four actors involved in the survey were:• The Municipality of Chania• The Association of Hoteliers of Chania• The Chamber of Chania• The Greek Organization of TourismIn the area of research, it is important to develop tourism further in a sustainability horizon and to extend the tourist season. These two issues are the expectation and concern of both entrepreneurs and Local Authorities in recent years and are especially important due to the high participation of society and the dependence of citizens on tourism activity. Due to the wide and varied involvement of heterogeneous stakeholders in tourism, issues of consultation and common planning arise. The condition of sustainability has different readings from each involved and most often conflicts of interest arise. The area of research, which is characterized as a tourist area, has several of these tools which facilitate the design of a common strategy for the further development of the local tourist product. The local tourist product has a strong potential due to the existence of many and intense differentiations, but with proper planning can give a great boost to the tourism sector. However, the design sector is characterized by complexity and complexity and lack of coordination between institutions and businesses with regard to the common strategy for the development of the tourism sector.